A common situation in practical industrial applications related to product development is the need to perform quick surveys inside a space of state parameters. In mature and very competitive industrial sectors like aerospace, this need is motivated by the drive to generate products having good technical performance within design cycles that are as short as feasible. That is: time is a key factor in aerospace competitiveness because shortening the time market may provide a leading economic advantage during the product life cycle.
In the specific case of aeronautics, the prediction of the aerodynamic forces, and more generally skin surface values distributions, experimented by an aircraft is an important feature, in order to optimally design its structural components so that the weight of the structure is the minimum possible, but at the same time being able to withstand the expected aerodynamic forces.
Thanks to the increase of the use of the Computer Fluid Dynamics (CFD) the determination of the aerodynamic forces on an aircraft is commonly done by solving numerically the Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes equations (RANS equations from now onwards) that model the movement of the flow around the aircraft, using discrete finite elements or finite volume models. With the demand of accuracy posed in the aeronautical industry, each one of these computations requires important computational resources.
A first known approach for improving the execution of said equations for a given model is to provide analytical techniques that simplify the calculations needed for arriving to a solution. An example in this respect can be found in US 2009/157364 in the name of the applicant.
A second approach is the use of computer techniques whether for accelerating the calculation process or for optimizing the computational resources needed for solving a given problem. US 2005/288800 and US 2007/0219766 disclose proposals in this respect.
However the known CFD tools as well as other analogous tools still require large computing times in industrial applications such as particularly the design of aircrafts so that there is a permanent demand for improved computing systems and methods for executing said scientific codes.
The present invention is addressed to the attention of this demand.